From Prisoner to Fugitive
by Nobody's Love
Summary: REZero Missing scene. The unknown events that provoked Billy Coen's escape from the military police on the way to his execution. OneShot for now. First RE fic. R


_Disclaimer: Guess what? I don't own the Resident Evil franchise. Surprised?_

_A/N: This is my first RE fic from one of my favorite games and character in the RE series. This idea has been roaming through my mind for too long, and since not the game nor the novelization of Resident Evil Zero mention anything about this, I wrote down what might be some sort of missing scene for you in the form of a one-shot. Keep in mind that my English is not perfect and you may find some grammatical errors and "horrors" throughout the story. They are all mine, so feel free to flame me._

_Enjoy!_

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**A Resident Evil Zero Fanfiction**

**_From Prisoner to Fugitive_**

_Plants, trees, heat, tiredness, death… Those were the things that Lieutenant Billy Coen remembered to see in the past days. From the ten soldiers assigned to the mission, only four were left, Coroner Henry Miles, Private Larry Jensen, Private Otto Stevens, and him._

_That damn guerrilla, not ever showing up its face, had killed them one by one, silently. And the remaining ones that survived the attacks, sooner or later, tiredness and dehydration were going to finish them, the slow and anguishing way. There was no food left in their provisions, and the last sip of water was finished about half an hour ago, not before sharing some of it with his comrades. But his mouth was getting dry again; he has been walking for hours in no apparent direction. He was tired. He didn't even know if he was the next one to die._

_It seemed like the trail ended abruptly in a gully, covered by trees and loose branches. Billy moved aside the branches that blocked the scene that he was about to discover. A sandy terrain, with some small huts made of wooden and straws, scattered randomly through the place, and some people moving freely in what seemed to be their home._

_A village._

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"_Stay down, and don't move!" Lieutenant Miles screamed while pulling a black man by his arm to the village square, along with a dozen more people. They were kneeling, some of them hugging each other, crying, full of terror before the inexplicable situation._

_Something was wrong, Billy thought since the moment they step on that place. There were no weapons, no ammunition, not even hostages. There were not even a transportation mode, no communication systems, not ever resistance. In short, that was not the guerrilla hideout they were supposed to halt. It was just a simple and trashy village._

_Billy watched as Johnson fired away to nowhere in the air, like a possessed beast. There was nothing, they knew it, but anyway, the hostility was there. Billy could understand them; they were tired, sick… but they had a mission to accomplish, no matter where it falls over._

"_Kill them! Kill them all!" Miles screamed, entirely out of his own._

_What? Billy's heart pounded hard. They were innocent people who had no idea what was going on or who were those strangers that menaced them with their long guns. How may were they? Twenty? Thirty? Too much blood to shed and too much lives to dispatched. Now he didn't care obeying orders from his major. He had to stop them. He had to stop this madness._

_He ran desperately where his comrades surrounded the villagers. "No sir! Cease fire immediately!"_

"_Shut up!" Miles turned around, and Billy felt a strong blow on his face that sent him to his back on the floor, facing the sun. He brought his hands where the blow reached his face. The blow made him see lights, like stars, even with his eyes shut while trying to ease the pain, and even when the sun was shining hot in the sky._

"_Kill them, NOW!"_

_When Billy heard that, he tried to stand up, but immediately lost his balance and fell on his knees. And in the very moment he looked up, and in front of his widened eyes, the first thunder was heard._

_A rain of bullets began to fall over the bodies of the defenseless villagers, horror-filled cries mixing up with the deafening sound of their executors' rifles; his comrades. Dust began to fly in through the air when the shots didn't find skin or muscles to burn. Billy saw that even when the villagers were moving no more, the soldiers didn't stop firing. Merely thirty seconds had passed._

_Billy felt nauseous. No training had prepared him to watch such scene, such massacre. He knew it was lat to save them, to save the villagers as well as his mates. He stood up as fast as he could, and ran over them once again, not caring if he was going to be received with another blow._

"_No, please… Stop!"_

"_Noooo!"_

_&&&&&&&_

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Billy opened his eyes and at the same time, he swallowed a gulp of air in an attempt to control his accelerated breathing. He felt vibrations, like the ones of a motor clashing with metal, like a car, running through a stony field. He looked around, and saw that he was sitting on a bench in a space-reduced place, lit by a small but brilliant light in the center of the ceiling.

"Hey, Coen."

He heard a voice coming from a man in front of him. He shut his eyes once more and opened again to get used to the light and to his actual reality. He blinked and saw a person in military uniform sitting on a bench in front of him, who was watching him with a fixed stare. His arms were crossed across his chest, and between them, was a rifle. The military raised an eyebrow, still looking at Billy.

"Nightmare?"

Billy frowned, trying to understand.

The man gave a small smile. "Everybody has one."

Then Billy bowed his head down and looked to his hands on his lap, feeling something cold on them; and noticed they were handcuffed. On that moment, clarity came to Billy's mind.

Already a year has passed since that failed secret mission in Africa. Immediately, everything came to light. An error in the filtered information was what cost Billy his credibility as well as his freedom. After the massacre, they pick them up, and were interrogated. But it was three testimonies against his, testimonies in which seemed that everyone came to terms in dumping all their faults on Billy, who had not ever shot a single bullet then.

It was a short, direct trial, despite of the long wait, and another long wait to finish a bad moment; but not as direct and hard as the verdict. Billy was found guilty of murdering twenty-three people, and sentenced to death. The sentence was going to be executed under the Marines Corp supervision in which he belonged, as soon as the van carrying him arrived at the base.

Billy smiled at the fact; not as a rebellious act but at the circumstances the execution was going to be carried. He tried not to thing how it was going to be like. Shooting him would be fast, without much pain at all; but nowadays, and considering his bad luck up to that day, maybe they would try a new method on him now that, to the ones that knew it and believed it, he was just a vile murderer.

_Now it's a fact that they can kill what they created._

The van suddenly jumped, saving Billy of keeping imagining his death. It jumped pretty high, even a small curve was taken as he driver tried to regain control of the wheel. Billy tried to maintain his balance so he didn't fall from the hard bench he was sitting on.

"Hey, what was that?" screamed the guard when the van finally came stable, his sight to the tiny grilled window that communicated him to the driver.

"It was nothing," answered the driver while his face appeared through the window. "Maybe an animal on the road; I tried to avoid it."

The guard chuckled. "It would happened if it was hunting season. The hunters-"

"What the hell-?!"

The frightful shout was cut short when suddenly the van gave a sudden violent sharp curve that Billy and the guard fell to the metal floor. There was no time to ask what was going on when his surrounding began to roll, the next more fast and violent that the first, and making spin everything inside, persons included.

The space spin again and Billy fell, chest first, on what was supposed to be the ceiling, now the floor. But the van kept spinning and the bodies spin back and fell again. This time, Billy fell backwards, and felt he hurt his head with an edgy-thing. Dizziness and nausea flooded Billy's head. He shut his eyes trying not to faint. It was in vain; he saw darkness carried calmness with it, and he let himself go.

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Billy slowly opened his eyes as he began to clear a light blur on them, and to feel a backache. And in addition, his head was throbbing slightly, not anything that he couldn't tolerate, but still be a molesting thorn. He realized that he was lying on his back, and so his first thought was to sit up, which the merely movement made the pain sharpen a little, but at the same time it lessen until the pain was almost gone. While sitting, he moved his left hand to his bare, heavily tattooed right arm and rubbed in it for a moment as he realized that a cold breeze floated around him. Instinctively, Billy looked up forward…

…to see the double door of the armored van wide open, exposing a darkening view. Billy frowned in awe, and looked around his surroundings. He was still inside the van, but a lot of debris and twisted metal were scattered all through the reduced space.

_The guard?_ Billy though, as in his quick and shaky inspection he saw no other live form other than him. Then he felt a cold band surrounding his left wrist... but not on the right. He looked to his hands, and saw that the right metal band of the handcuffs was gone. Billy smiled nervously at it. But to complete his dismay, the left band of the handcuffs was still attached to the wrist, seemingly trying to dig up onto his skin.

He took another look to his small, exposed prison. Definitively, after the sudden ferris-wheel-like tumbles the van made, something was amiss, and terribly wrong. He looked back at the open door, and after realizing that sitting on the metal floor and looking incredulously to walls wouldn't explain what just happened, he stood up. Relieved that his headache and backache were no more, he walked toward the door.

Billy stepped cautiously out of the van, being welcomed to the upcoming night by a handful of fairly tall trees, by another cold breeze and by a light mist above the weeded ground. He made another few steps away, and turned around to see the obviously wild surroundings. But the cause of his confusing situation obstructed his view.

The armoured van was completely tumbled upside down, its mechanics fully exposed to the sky and the roof of the driver's cabin partly flat on the ground.

Up until then, Billy realized the seriousness of the accident. He walked by the side of the van, watching the now inverted "MP" letters printed in the cabin's door, looking more like a "dW" right now. One of the cabin's door was open, so Billy thought that the driver managed to get out of it, maybe on the way to look out for help. He looked inside through the cracked windshield, and confirmed that no one was there

_But where are they now?_

As he approached to the front, he noted the headlights were still on despite the severely crushed cabin. He looked at the direction the white lights were pointing, and saw a dirt path –

- and two shadows lying up ahead on the ground.

Billy frowned, trying not to let the fear run through his nervous system. He stared at them for a moment, and realized that the shadows ahead were those of people. At the thought that maybe they were the MP's escorting them, and that maybe they were still alive, he hurried to them. As he approached them, he saw that one of them was lying on his chest, and the other was a few feet away, lying on his back. He crouched on the nearest one, the one lying on his back. The military uniform confirmed that at least this one was indeed, one of the MP's.

Billy turned him on his back, the view almost made him gagged in disgust. His face was as if petrified in terror, with eyed wide open, and deep, bloody scratches on the forehead and one side of the face, that extended down through the neck. The neck muscles were almost fully exposed, the skin seemed to be shred apart. Definitively, Billy thought, this must had produced his death instantly, as this wound would have invaded the major vessels.

This one was dead, so he looked up to the other form not far away. He stood up, and approached to the other even more cautiously, hoping that this one, if not alive, would not be as gruesome as the first. But he stopped midway at the partial view of the body. From there, it was enough to see that this one was, also, dead, as Billy could visualized almost the same wounds and scratches as the first one. But that view was not the one to convinced him of his state, but the view that overshadowed the rest of it; his left arm was missing, almost up to his shoulder, the blood that came out of it dried on the mashed skin tissue and on the ground.

_Wolves._ There was no doubt of it. What other animal could do such damage? They must have been starving, judging by the apparent feast they took… and the leftovers.

This was an impossible situation. Now, Billy realized to his full that he was alone, cold, lost in what appeared to be a forest and apparently, no help was coming. He needed to look for help, and at the same time, run like hell, out of the view, away from his death. He considered for a moment follow the dirt path lighted up by the van, but the path was surely going to the military base, and going there was like running to his death sentence, in addition that every one will think that he killed the MP's and no one will believed his more accurate version. So he skipped the idea and thought of another option, while turning around and spotting the van again.

_The radio!_ Billy's mind screamed. Of course, he was been transported in a military transport, and not having a radio in it was an unforgivable sin. He ran back to the van, and crouched to enter the cabin.

It was easy to find the radio, even when everything was turned upside down and the dark night was approaching. He took the radio, which was emitting a faint static sound, but before he could press the button and speak, he saw on the far side what appeared to be a handgun. Actually, he saw to of them, and two flashlights in between them. He extended his arm and reach for one of the guns. He looked at it, hesitated for a minute, as he thought if it was a good idea to take one with him. After all, their owners were death, and knowing that there surely were wild animals roaming around the place, he adjusted it in the back of his denim pants. He also took one of the flashlight, and put it on one of his pockets.

_Now, back to business_. Radio still on his hand, he pressed the button and finally broke the silence that was reigning dusk.

"Attention, anybody," said Billy, searching for the right words to say between heavy breaths. "This is an emerg-"

The view of wolf-like shadows took his attention as he looked forward through the windshield, cutting his attempt of speaking. They must be four or five of them, a full pack. The shadows approached slowly to the van to the clear lighted up view, and Billy knew something was wrong on them.

As they stepped into the light, their white eyes were looking directly to him, full on menace and hungriness. And they appeared to have no skin, because, their coat seemed to be on live flesh, wet and bloody. The vertebrae were clearly visible in one of them, the ribcage in other two, or three. They were showing their teeth, and froth was coming out their mouths, dripping on the ground.

He slowly came out of the cabin, foolishly exposing himself to their view. In a split second, one wolf started to run and jumped over him. Reflexively, he took out the handgun and without aiming, he shot twice.

There was a tiny cry as the wolf was caught in mid air and sent back to the rest of the pack, apparently immobile. Then he realized that they were not wolves, but dogs, like Doberman dogs; tall, but lacking of fur. He stared in awe as the shot animal began to move again, and standing back to its feet, as if it just received a weak hit.

"I shot it twice," Billy whispered to himself, here was no way that dog would have survived two small range shots. The pack started to run to him, and at the same time, Billy turned around and started to run away from those strange beasts. He dodged through trees plants as he run as fast as he could and jumping over fallen logs.

His mind was running as fast as his legs let him to, but the dogs were still running after him, not losing the sight of them not even for an instant. Suddenly, there were no trees, there was a clearing. He could see it before stepping out of the woods. But no stop… he had to keep running. Then, a structure appeared before his eyes… A long, very long structure… Big, so much that it took all of his sight view… and a door. He saw a door, still on his desperate run. He heard growling, furious growling behind them… they were coming close to him. He run to that door to –

_A house? A tent? Long hut?_ He headed there, hoping it was open. If not, he was dead.

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From the mountains, a thin figure watched in the darkness of night the vast forest expanding to his feet. Tranquility was suddenly to be disrupted as a cool wind fell through the trees' leaves, and through his white, tear-out cloak. It was a good sign; this was not going to be an ordinary night, not by nature's will, but by his. The corruptors' company train was already dispatched earlier, and even an out-of-the-script car had to be attended, taking him some of his precious time.

But now, there would be no more side tracks. It was time, his time.

_Finally, my revenge._

And so, the nightmare began...

_**.:: The End ::.**_

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**A/N: Thanks for reading! Your comments will always be welcomed :)_


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